


in the dark, count mistakes

by notavodkashot



Series: words are futile devices [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ardyn Being Ardyn, Ardyn is playing with powers he doesn't understand, Carbuncle is a troll, Faustian Bargain, Gilgamesh is Honorable and Proper and Chivalrous, Gilgamesh is trying to keep this idiot alive, It's all going to end terribly and they don't know it yet, JUST KISS ALREADY, M/M, Sort Of, it's driving Ardyn insane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-28 12:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/pseuds/notavodkashot
Summary: Fills for Gilgardyn Fanweek 2018, all set in thesun is outcontinuity.Ardyn wasn't always...that.Neither was Gilgamesh. Once upon a time, they were almost happy.





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

_dawn & dusk | Gilgamesh is badly wounded in battle with no time for healing so Ardyn is forced to take the offensive _

* * *

He should have listened to Gilgamesh, when he said this was a bad idea. He should have listened and turned away and not– 

“And now,” the fox, that very clearly was not _just_ a fox, asked him, tail dissolving into wisps of smoke as the sharp, intelligent eyes pinned him in place, “what will you do, Healer?” 

That was a fantastically on point question, really. 

Ardyn snarled at the daemon, white-knuckle grip on the handle of his scythe, and shifted his footing so he was standing somewhat firmly between Gilgamesh’s crumpled form and the strange creature. For all the good that’d do, honestly, considering his fighting skills were not particularly noteworthy. He was a healer, not a warrior. That was the whole point, really. 

In the wake of the end of the world as humanity had known it, with cities burned to the ground and Gods clashing over the rivers of blood left in their wake, the Draconian had delivered his promise and Ardyn had been the poor idiot chosen to turn it into prophecy, because he could stop the plague before it consumed what little was left of mankind. The glory days of Solheim were over and all they had left were the few, scattered clans that still had sparks of magic to call their own, wandering the wasteland and scavenging what they could to sustain themselves. 

It wasn’t enough, though. 

It wasn’t enough to soak in the darkness under his skin, snapping its hold on its victims and letting them go free. The plague was relentless, ruthless and inexorable. Those he healed today would be infected again tomorrow or the day after. Those he’d once saved had died anyway, once he was long gone. No, Ardyn had thought, it wasn’t enough, he needed to find the source. Like tearing out weeds from a garden, cutting the stems did nothing if the roots remained firmly planted. 

Gilgamesh had told him it was stupid, because it was and Gilgamesh was nothing if not always there to remind him of his own stupidity. 

“You’ve spilled blood, Healer,” the fox went on, maws widening and tail splitting as it flickered back and forth, “so perhaps you’re not much of a Healer, after all...” 

Ardyn found his tongue stuck stubbornly to the roof his mouth. He felt all the more defenseless because of it, because what he lacked in strength, he usually made up with wit. He’d lost count of how many potential fights he’d defused with careful plying of this skill. He mediated. He joked and charmed and in the end, managed to remind his opponents that whatever had sparked the fight in the first place was not worth the risk of getting hurt. Gilgamesh liked to tease him for it, whenever Ardyn managed to talk them out of a bandit ambush or an angry mob, that maybe Ardyn didn’t need him as an escort after all. That Ardyn and his silver tongue could walk the world and find salvation for humanity all on their own, and Gilgamesh was just there for decoration. 

He was doing a very shoddy job of that, Ardyn thought somewhat hysterically, swallowing hard as his eyes drifted just enough to catch a glimpse of Gilgamesh’s unmoving body behind him. He didn’t look long enough to notice if he was breathing or not, because he wasn’t sure he could take it. Instead he looked swiftly back at the daemon before him, and swore it had grown in size again in the span of time it’d taken Ardyn to look away. 

“But perhaps it’s for the best,” the fox said, and it sounded… kinder. Softer. Ardyn shuddered all the way down to his soul, regardless. “A Healer is not what’s needed. Not for this.” 

“And what’s _this_ , exactly?” Ardyn asked, at last, voice flippant and hopefully not as trembling as he felt. “A tragedy in four acts?” 

The fox. 

Smiled. 

“Would you like to find out?” 

* * *

“This is a terrible idea,” Gilgamesh said, squinting down at Ardyn with the air of a man proclaiming something eminently obvious but that somehow still needed to be said. 

Ardyn stared up at him blankly for a moment and then laughed. It covered up the sound of the scythe pulling free of the daemon carcass splayed at his feet, already melting into luminescent ash. 

“Absolutely,” he replied, because this was the conversation they had, over and over again, in lieu of all the conversations they should have but didn’t want to start, because blood would run. “But we do what we must.” 

It was a sound excuse, as far as Ardyn was concerned. It’d gotten them far. In the year and change since his encounter with the fox, doing what he must had translated to goading Gilgamesh into teaching him how to hunt and track and fight. They did what they must, to reach their goal – they had a goal now – and if that involved not stopping by so many villages – people were building villages now – or focusing more on going out of their way to find daemons and fighting them instead of healing people sick with the plague… 

Well, they did what they must. 

The darkness coiled under Ardyn’s skin and seeped in deeper, into his bones. He’d stopped the purifying rituals, to wash away the corruption, as per the instructions he’d been given. It had made him sicker, for a bit, and he’d needed Gilgamesh for more than decoration for the duration, but then it’d settled, like sediment at the bottom of a river. He was stronger now, because of it. His magic had depth it never had before, and every time they fought daemons he got better and better at sucking in the darkness glimmering in their remains, adding their power to his. 

“Ardyn,” Gilgamesh said, fingers wrapped like iron bands on Ardyn’s arm, keeping him in place. 

Ardyn rolled his eyes dramatically but turned his head up to meet Gilgamesh’s concerned stare when he tugged at him. Somewhere in the back of his head, somewhere far away and forgotten that he never listened to, Ardyn was aware Gilgamesh could very much tug on his arm clean off its socket if he wanted to. He was Gilgamesh, after all, Sworn Shield of the (Future) King. There were very few things in the world that could stand up to him – though they did exist, Ardyn remembered somberly, picturing clearly in his head the sight of his companion brought down by monsters, life oozing out his pores for the sake of Ardyn’s – but it wasn’t Gilgamesh’s nature to brag about it. 

Gilgamesh’s nature was to be solemn and quiet and boring, right up until he wasn’t, but despite everything, Ardyn did not fear him. How could he? Gilgamesh was fundamentally a good man. A million times better than Ardyn could ever hope to be, definitely, considering he wasn’t slowly replacing the marrow of his bones with undiluted darkness and blight. 

“Now, now, I know what I’m doing,” Ardyn promised, even though he really, really didn’t, not quite. 

He didn’t flinch from the hand tilting up his face, or from the mouth covering his own. It was infuriatingly chaste, that kiss. All of Gilgamesh’s kisses were infuriatingly chaste, gentle to the point of pain, like Ardyn was fragile and required to be handled with care. It was ridiculous and he’d never admit to enjoying such treatment. So it was just as good that Gilgamesh didn’t expect him to admit it. Gilgamesh didn’t seem to expect anything of him, really, which was probably why Ardyn’s desperately contrary nature wanted to give him _everything_. 

Everything. 

“Let’s wait til morning,” Gilgamesh said, eyes half lidded in that placating expression of his, the one that seemed to ask Ardyn to be sensible for once. “Less daemons that way.” 

Beneath their feet, the Crag opened up like a scar on the very landscape, a poignant reminder of how insignificant they were, before the might of the Six. 

It was a very sensible notion, to wait until dawn before they began their descent. Frankly, Ardyn owed Gilgamesh to be sensible about this, considering he’d never questioned Ardyn’s shift in priorities or his sudden certainty as to what his goal was. Gilgamesh took everything in stride, always, no matter how whimsical or silly or ridiculous or suicidal Ardyn was feeling that day. It made sense, to wait and plan and not throw themselves headfirst into disaster. 

Ardyn fingered the handful of feathers hanging behind his ear. 

“It is always darkest before dawn breaks, darling,” Ardyn told him instead, because it was true, and because he didn’t know he’d be brave enough to step into the Crag come morning, once he was rested and fed and not quite as unbalanced as he was at the moment. 

Gilgamesh didn’t say anything – of course he didn’t, Ardyn had longed stopped being childish and doing reckless things for the sake of making his companion react, now he just took it for granted that nothing he did would make the towering man crack his facade of perpetual serenity – but he didn’t take his hand off Ardyn’s arm either, when they started to make their way down the jagged rocks. 

Well, he tried. 

* * *

Gilgamesh didn’t make it into the heart of the Crag with him. He stayed behind, battling hordes of daemons that seemed to pour out of the rocks themselves. Ardyn told himself he didn’t look back – he did – as he made his way through the dark, feeling the pulse of it in his very soul, tugging him towards the source. 

The fountain where the plague and all its foul monsters poured from. 

The Heart of the Scourge. 

“You understand, now, what needs to be done.” 

He did. 

He didn’t know if he could do it. 

He didn’t know if it could be done, period. 

But he knew what needed to be done, and why. 

Ardyn licked his lips as he stood up before the endless swirls of corruption out of which all that was vile and dark crawled into being. 

“We do what we must,” he told it, almost apologetic, almost regretful. “Nothing more.” 

Then he raised his hand and willed himself hollow and empty, vast enough to give the writhing, screaming dark somewhere to go. It was different from anything he’d ever healed before, though. It didn’t _fight_ him. It didn’t feel angry or scared or full of hatred, like daemons always did. It felt… sorry, almost, for what he’d been forced to do. 

Ardyn would have laughed at the absurdity of it, if he weren’t fighting to hold onto his very sense of self, to keep from drowning in the dark. 

Alas, up to that point, he was only human. 

But only up to that point. 

* * *

Ardyn woke up cradled in the safety of Gilgamesh’s arms. As far as places to wake up in, it wasn’t too terrible. He blinked sleepily and realized he was fully dressed – of course he was – so a miracle hadn’t actually happened. Which was a crying shame, but all in all, Ardyn wasn’t complaining. One could even say he was basking in the feeling. 

Then he felt the weight in his hands and looked down to find a tiny fox statue made of shiny black stone, like onyx or obsidian, clasped tightly in his right hand. 

“ _Ardyn_ ,” Gilgamesh growled, his embrace tightening until Ardyn swore he could hear his bones creaking. 

He was clearly expecting an explanation of some sort. Of course he was. Ardyn fingered the fox figurine, floundering for words. That never happened. But then, none of this had ever happened before, that much he knew. 

But he felt, if not fine, at least not worse for wear, despite it all. He wouldn’t mind turning around and going right back to sleep for a small eternity, but that was just how he always felt, after sealing off the plague. 

The scourge. 

In the distance, dawn broke, light crawling up the horizon and extinguishing the stars, one by one. 

“Don’t give me that look, my dear,” Ardyn said, at long last, sighing a little hopeful smile, and leaned in to press it against the underside of Gilgamesh’s jaw. “The sun is out, the day is new! And we must do what needs be done.” 

Gilgamesh wasn’t having it, though. He stared down at Ardyn with that stupid intense look of his, like he was trying to project his thoughts right into Ardyn’s mind. But then, rather than sink into silence and brooding as he was wont to do, he actually spoke: 

“And what exactly needs doing now?” He asked, voice just a sliver higher than usual, with the ghost of something uncertain in it, because he refused to follow Ardyn’s example and pretend nothing at all had happened. 

If Gilgamesh were anyone else, Ardyn reckoned a little sullenly, they might as well be having A Moment right there and then. It was the perfect time to have one of those, after all. 

“Ardyn.” 

Ardyn sighed and found himself fiddling with the fox, absently marveling at the fact it was cool to the touch, despite his grip on it. 

“Go home, I suppose,” he muttered, lips twisted at the corners and contemplated telling Gilgamesh to ease off on the bruising hold. 

They watched the sunrise, instead. 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

_festivities | Ardyn visits Gilgamesh in Taelpar Crag_

* * *

_Why._

It wasn’t even a question, at this point. It was a cross between a sulk and a demand. Ardyn supposed if he were mildly more sane or a tad bit less _over_ the whole thing, he would be suitably concerned by the voice consistently echoing between his ears. It was just the way things were, now, and there was nothing to do about it. Though, he thought somewhat snidely – and knew it could hear him, just as he could hear it, which was precisely why he entertained the thought so often – if he’d been told the Heart of the Scourge was going to be this chatty – and sullen – he would have reconsidered his commitment to bear the burden of saving the world. 

The fox lazily curled up in his lap twitched in response to his thoughts, black fur silky and smooth to the point of looking _gooey_ , and then it shifted enough to press its cold, wet nose into the skin under his shirt, just barely above his pants. He knew it was going to do it, and he still yelped and flinched from it. 

_Why!_

“Because you’re insufferable,” Ardyn muttered snidely, staring down at the fox, nose wrinkled in dispassionate disgust, and shook his head as he went back to trimming colorful sheets of sheer thin paper into the shape of lotus flowers. “And because tonight the dead walk among the living.” 

_...really?_

Ardyn snorted and held up his flower to study with a critical eye. 

“No,” he sighed, “not really. But they’ve been doing it for years and years, all the way back to the times of Solheim.” 

_Lies._

“Of course they are, my dear,”Ardyn agreed magnanimously, “but they make them feel better, and sometimes that’s enough.” 

The reply to that was wordless, generalized annoyance that made a corner of Ardyn’s lip twitch up in amusement. The annoyance spiked significantly in response to that, but he still got perhaps half an hour to himself – and his flowers, which were slightly lopsided and more daisy-like than lotus-esque all in all – before he felt another prickle of curiosity. 

_Why._

“Tonight, the flowers will be made into lanterns,” he explained, meticulously folding up his best attempt to try and salvage the aesthetics of it, “and then released into the river. The light will guide the souls of the departed home.” 

_Death is a one-way door._

It was rare to get something more than disgruntled one-word demands, but what truly caught Ardyn by surprise was the… certainty behind that statement. He squinted down at the fox in his lap, and found it staring up at him through eyes shiny like glass beads, bottomless black like the spaces between the stars. 

“Humans like to imagine otherwise,” Ardyn said, shrugging philosophically. “It makes them feel less alone, after all. Less insignificant in the face of all those terribly significant things, like Gods and Death and… well. You know. _You_.” 

He meant to sound snide, but it was a very controlled level of snide. It was very measured, after months of finding the precise balance between too little and too much, until he felt comfortable inside his own bones, regardless of who happened to be sharing them. 

_It wasn’t meant to be this way._

Ardyn didn’t have a witty answer to that. Not with words anyway. He hadn’t been told what had been meant to be, instead of the corruption eating through souls until they burst like a boil and then collapsed in on themselves, becoming monstrous, incoherent nightmares. But he could feel the ghost of it, in the echoes of bitterness and regret, and deeper still, a pulse of hatred that echoed like a second heartbeat inside his chest. 

He didn’t ask. 

He didn’t need to know, anyway. 

All he had to do was get home and fix what was broken and then everything would be fine. 

Probably. 

“Ardyn.” 

Gilgamesh appeared by the edge of the clearing, tall and looming as usual, expression the faint frown he always wore since Ardyn woke up in his arms with the Scourge nesting in his bones and a voice grunting in his skull. Ardyn looked down at his lap, more out of habit than any real concern: the fox was gone, of course, and all that was left was the tiny figurine tucked against his thigh. Of course. 

_Less hassle._

Ardyn smiled rather than answer and beckoned Gilgamesh closer, to show him the fruits of his labor. Gilgamesh approached with cautious, tentative steps, like he was afraid of setting off a trap of some kind. Ardyn smothered the thought before it managed to reach his face, holding his smile frozen in place until Gilgamesh’s fingers gingerly took the would-be lantern from his hands. 

“For your brother,” Ardyn explained, and couldn’t quite stop looking a little smug about it, because he knew it meant something for Gilgamesh, that he’d remembered. “It’s a little bit crooked, but I reckon it won’t really matter once it starts burning. And I suppose if your brother minds, he can always come and yell at me about it.” 

Gilgamesh gathered the paper contraption in his hands delicately, unsure for a moment, before he sighed and returned Ardyn’s smile with a vague sliver of his own. 

Ardyn basked in his triumph and refused to feel bitter about the fact these little gestures, these tiny, awkward moments were all he had left. Every time he approached, Gilgamesh pulled back, panicked first and then thoughtful. Concerned. 

Everything was different, after the Crag. Everything was bent and misaligned, and despite Ardyn’s best attempts, he couldn’t quite figure out how to fix it. He missed that look, in Gilgamesh’s eyes, the one that was three parts fond and one quarter pure annoyance. He missed the hand resting square in the center of his back as they walked on uneven roads or the fingers brushing his, sometimes, always just moments shy of grasping his own. 

He even missed the chaste kisses that promised nothing and offered even less. 

“You didn’t have to,” Gilgamesh told him, in that quiet murmur of his, but his eyes were soft and his mouth was curved just enough to make Ardyn feel the sudden, vicious urge to reach up and pull him down, make him topple down his stupid pedestal of chivalrous honor. 

“I will be King one day,” Ardyn said flippantly, taking a moment to toss his head back dramatically, hair and feathers rustling to punctuate the statement, “I’m practicing doing things because I want to, rather than because it’s expected. I’d rather not forget how that feels.” 

It was the wrong thing to say, evidently: Gilgamesh’s expression hardened, resolute like when he prepared to face an opponent on less than favorable odds. 

_You’re pretty terrible at this._

Ardyn ignored the quip, all the more because it was true. 

“Thank you for your consideration,” Gilgamesh said, soft and formal and so far away it didn’t matter he was still standing within arm’s length from Ardyn, he was unreachable anyway. 

* * *

Ardyn watched Gilgamesh set the little lantern into the river, a tiny flame flickering between the misshapen paper petals, and felt slightly vindicated when it didn’t immediately burst into flames or sink into the depths. He watched him slowly waddle back to the shore, water and clothes clinging to the outline of his legs. They were very nice legs. They went on forever. And ever. And _ever_. 

_Hopeless._

Ardyn did not tell the monstrosity woven into his soul to shut the fuck up. He just thought it very loudly. And then he let go of the pocket of air perpetually caught under his sternum, forced it out into a sigh, and reached out to grab Gilgamesh’s arm and tug him along towards the nearest bonfire. Miraculously, the great lumbering idiot let himself be led, docile and unresisting, all the way until he was sitting next to Ardyn by the fire, watching the first brave dancers start circling the pyres. 

“I made a vow,” Gilgamesh said, long after circles of merry dancers had formed around all the fires, and the bravest dared each other to jump over the flames to prove their faith, “so be the Shield of the King.” Ardyn blinked, looking up at him with an arched eyebrow, but the sardonic reply withered somewhere in his throat when he took in the expression in Gilgamesh’s face. “I promised to take my brother’s place, to not let the King feel his absence.” 

“You will be a magnificent Shield,” Ardyn assured him, because it was true. 

There was no one in the world Ardyn would choose over Gilgamesh, for the duty of being his Shield. It would be preferable to be alone, than to replace him, and he was ready to fight over that if necessary. 

“But I never did ask the King, if he even wanted a Shield in the first place.” 

Ardyn stared. 

And stared. 

And then stared some more. 

_Say something._

Then he reached into his pocket to grab the fox statue and flung it into the nearest pyre without looking. 

_Petty._

But then silence. Blessed silence, but only for so long. It was precious and fading and then he grabbed Gilgamesh’s collar and pulled him into a kiss that had more in common with a declaration of war than the awkward, chaste dalliances they’d shared before. 

_Rude._

Ardyn threw the fox into the fire again, as soon as he felt the weight reconstitute itself into his pockets, and then later got rid of his pockets all together. 

It was great. 

* * *

Later, much later, the memory of that night would be one of scant few that wouldn’t let itself be torn asunder by the weight of all he’d become by then. 

_Why won’t he see you? He asked to remain, just to see you again one day._

Ardyn smiled as he sat by the river that fed straight into the depths of the Crag, carefully folding a colorful paper placemat from the nearby Crow's Nest, into a lotus-shapped lantern. He was rather good at it, by now, folding paper into flowers that could hold tiny flames in their hearts and carry them downstream relatively safely. Ardyn forgot a lot of things, near constantly – he forgot himself, most of the time, because being himself was just unbearable pretty much always – but he never forgot to crawl back to the Crag on the anniversary of a festival basically no one else remembered anymore. 

“That’s how I know he loves me, still,” Ardyn explained patiently, sparing a smile to the fox sprawled on his lap. 

_That makes no sense at all._

As She said this, Her tiny nose wrinkled in disgust and Ardyn laughed even as he gave the finishing touches to his makeshift lantern. 

“Love seldom does, my dear,” he said, blowing on the cheap, tiny candle he’d stuck in the center of his lotus, and which burst into flame by sheer force of will. “It’s what makes it worthwhile.” 

His Lady stared at him long and hard, and then said, almost sad: 

_But you don’t love him anymore._

Ardyn watched the makeshift craft be swallowed by the current, sucked into the depths of the Crag, never to be seen ever again. 

“Of course not,” he admitted, taking his hat off Her head and plopping it squarely back on his own, where it belonged, as he stood up and began walking away from the Crag and the Idiot brooding in its depths. “But I still remember how it felt, when I did.” 


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

_scars | Gilgamesh is tired of the price Ardyn must pay for his healing so he goes to bargain with/threaten the gods to relieve him of his suffering_

* * *

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Ardyn, hand outstretched towards the dragon’s egg that turned out to be the Crystal and the pulse of Light within, the surprisingly serene expression on his face, just before he vanished. 

He didn’t linger on what came after – the Crystal’s surface going from multicolored glimmers to a molten, volcanic black, shaking and trembling in place, before it finally burst open, revealing that it was not a solid stone, as they had thought, but hollowed and layered with crystal growths in all shades of lilac-blue and pinkish-purple – on the look on Somnus’ face – King, now – when the messenger of the Gods decried his brother tainted and corrupt. 

Gilgamesh fixated on the first, rather than the later, because the weight in his chest would be all too heavy to bear otherwise. Because if he thought of Ardyn – kind, reckless, endlessly empathetic Ardyn, who could not see wrong without wanting to stick his nose in it and trying to make it right, always – as tainted and corrupt he might do something violent and ignoble and all around uncalled for. 

(It would be, Gilgamesh thought, very fucking called-for, but he didn’t let himself think so for long.) 

Ardyn was gone, either way. 

It didn’t matter. 

Nothing mattered, but the new King was weak on his feet like a newborn fawn, meek and melancholic, and entirely too small to shoulder the burden of the Crystal’s magic and its Prophecy of redemption for the world. Not at all like his brother, Gilgamesh would often find himself thinking, which were treacherous thoughts, true, but _it didn’t matter_. 

He still helped. 

He still bent the knee. 

He still followed the newly Crowned King and his Oracle – his sister, their sister, a veritable child, small and frail and entirely too innocent to face the gaping maws of the world itself – across the land, carrying his word and rallying his men until they became an army. He watched him grow in power and wisdom and wit, challenging the Gods themselves to prove his own might, the so called champion of the Light, savior from the Scourge. Gilgamesh said nothing, even though Somnus never did learn to grow his compassion, never bothered to look behind him and consider the ruin he left behind his displays of divine favor. 

Gilgamesh followed him all the way to the place he decided to call his seat of power, the heart of his new nation, an army of hopeful fanatics trailing after him, desperate to partake in the magic and the prophecy and all the wondrous _Light_. 

He named the city Insomnia. 

They called him the Founder King for that, and Gilgamesh did not gag when they refused to mention the fact he’d bought their new homeland by marrying his sister – _Ardyn’s_ sister, all of seventeen years old and far too well trained in the art of self-sacrifice for his peace of mind – and her magic to a warlord willing to institute a dynasty of his own. 

Gilgamesh followed because inertia carried him through it, making him move like a puppet too stupid to stop even if his heart was long dead. 

Ardyn was _gone_. 

And then one day, Gilgamesh woke up behind the safety of Insomnia’s walls, stared at the ceiling and remembered the night Ardyn had walked into the darkness and by some miracle the darkness had seen fit to give him back, come dawn. He remembered the Crag, crawling with daemons and monsters and horrors from the Scourge, powerful and ancient on their own. 

He remembered. 

Come evening, he’d left, one very short, very blunt letter for his liege. 

Ardyn was gone, yes, but if he’d been cast out for being corrupted, Gilgamesh was going to find the source of that corruption and destroy it with his bare hands if he had to, holy prophecy be damned. 

His liege was secure on his throne, consumed by his Ring and his Crystal. He would pass down the crown to his own children, while Gilgamesh’s nephew, last scion of his blood, last remnant of his brother, would be honored to serve them. 

He didn’t need him anymore. 

He didn’t _matter_. 

Not anymore. 

* * *

It took him months to reach the Crag. 

_Months_ . 

He didn’t mean to delay. He didn’t mean to sidetrack. But he saw, now, all the things he couldn’t before, all the misery and despair in the wake of the birth of Lucis, and yet all of it drowned under the weight of relentless _hope_. That vicious poison of the soul that convinced the ailing and the downtrodden to believe in the Gods that had destroy the world, just because they could. 

And he thought of Ardyn – could hear him, in his head, the precise tilt of his voice when he was being witty and the exact note of his drawl when he was making light of something that upset him – and thought of what Ardyn would do – help, always, even when it wasn’t convenient or easy or welcome – and found himself doing so in his stead. 

He did not wonder what the world would be like, if the King that ruled it was one forged in the gutter and valued his scale in human terms, rather than a King who pursued the mysteries of the Gods and kept his eyes on the horizon, never having learned to look back at all. He very scrupulously did not allow himself to think of that, lest he too turned back and committed himself to something truly unwise. 

He kept stopping, every step of the way, helping even when it was unwanted. When it was unkind. When he was cursed for it. But he did, eventually, find himself standing at the gaping jaws of the Crag, alone with his sword and the scars on his soul, which ached and bled ten times more than the scars on his skin. 

The darkness coiled in the depths, its presence heavy and oppressive, making air sink in his lungs like lead. 

Gilgamesh did not have magic of his own. His strength laid solely on the sharp edge of his sword and the resolve with which he wielded it – why, indeed, did he wield his sword, after all this time? - not on covenants for power that always costed more than they were worth, in the long run. But even he could feel it in his bones, the madness oozing from the Crag like miasma. He was ready to face whatever horrors hid in there, to avenge his King – his love, his heart, his insufferably smug know-it-all idiot that made promises he knew damn well he couldn’t hope to keep – but he was not prepared for what actually crawled out of the shadows to greet him in that half-space between light and dark. 

“Leave,” the minuscule creature snarled at him, a ball of fur barely the size of a house cat, with ears so big two thirds of the entire thing _was_ ears. It stared up at him, shiny black eyes nearly lost in the middle of all that midnight fur, glossy and soft-looking. “You’re not wanted here.” 

Gilgamesh did what any sensible man would do in his place, and skewered the apparition right on through, with his sword. 

The fox melted into ooze, rather than the iridescent dust all daemons did, and then reformed back into itself, merely a foot to the left of where it’d just been stabbed. 

“Rude.” 

Gilgamesh stabbed it again. 

And again. 

And again. 

And then it said: 

“He’s not dead.” 

And Gilgamesh realized he’d inadvertently started to list his grievances in the process of stabbing the irritating critter, over and over again. Including the one at the heart of it all, the sheer injustice that Ardyn had done and given and fought all he did, only to be consumed by the Crystal and then killed for being impure, of all things. 

“He’s not dead,” the creature said, its massive ears twitching as it peered up at Gilgamesh almost shrewdly, “but he’s also not… _not_ dead.” 

“ _Where_ ,” Gilgamesh demanded as he reached down to grab the little pest and pull it up so he could properly glare at it. 

The fox – it looked kind of maybe vaguely fox-like, though unlike any fox Gilgamesh had ever seen before – melted into wisps of darkness in his hand, and reconstituted itself back on the floor. 

“You’re mortal,” it pointed out, skeptically, “so nowhere you could follow.” 

Gilgamesh looked at the Crag and the bottomless darkness of its depths. 

“You _will_ die,” the fox warned him, as he stepped forward, but very consciously did not try to stop him. “Or worse.” 

Gilgamesh had the sudden, strange certainty that the little creature could very well stop him, if it tried. 

He didn’t care. 

He stared at the dark so profound it made his eyes hurt, and walked. 


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

_unworthy | Ardyn is exiled and Gilgamesh is allowed to visit him one last time_

* * *

At the bottom of the Crag, Gilgamesh found Ardyn. 

It looked like Ardyn, at the very least, which was a lot more than could be said for Gilgamesh himself. Gilgamesh had always been tall and strong and imposing. He’d been chosen as a suitable replacement for his brother for exactly that reason: he looked the part. He’d learned to fill in those shoes, as well, and be exactly what he needed to be, for his King’s sake. 

But now he knew himself monstrous, too. The Crag was deep and the trek had been long, and every step of the way more and more of the dark seeped into him, twisting and changing and _corrupting_. No matter how deep he ventured, daemons failed to appear, until he realized it was because he was already there. 

“He won’t listen to me,” the tiny – it now looked insignificant in size next to him, but he had an inkling that was deceiving – creature that had led him there said, peering up at him with those shiny, bottomless black eyes. “But maybe he’ll listen to you.” 

_Maybe_ . 

Ardyn was curled up against the rock wall, head bowed between his knees, arms wrapped around his ankles. He looked small and frail and lifeless. Essentially as diametrically opposed to his usual self, as he could be. Though Gilgamesh thought, guiltily, how long had Ardyn been there, festering in the dark, alone and cold and _not dead_. 

“Ardyn.” 

Gilgamesh folded himself down to his knees, when he received no answer. 

“He _broke_ him,” the fox said, and it felt neither small nor docile at all, “just like He broke me.” The fox slithered up and around Ardyn’s shoulders, stretching effortlessly to blanket him. “He would break the world in half, if it meant he got his way.” 

Gilgamesh almost asked. 

Almost. 

He gathered Ardyn in his arms, instead, and it didn’t matter his skin had grown armor, walking through the dark, Ardyn was there, more mirage than man, but still. 

There. 

Not dead. 

* * *

Gilgamesh knew precisely the moment Ardyn snapped back into reality, because fingers dug through armor and cloth and sank into him as he finally returned the embrace with savage desperation, and then he keened like a wounded animal. 

Still, Gilgamesh held on. 

* * *

“Ardyn.” 

Ardyn stopped, back turned to Gilgamesh, heading towards the exit of the Crag. He looked frail and small no longer, Gilgamesh noted. His back was wide in a way his brother’s wasn’t, wide enough to shoulder the world itself if he needed to. 

If he wanted to. 

“You shouldn’t have come,” Ardyn told him, not looking back. He had the damnable fox on his shoulders, tail swishing lazily along his back. “If you hadn’t come back, I would have stayed here, forever.” 

“Until he came to destroy you, anyway,” the fox pointed out, ears flickering disdainfully. 

Ardyn turned his head just enough to look down at Gilgamesh over his shoulder, lips pulled into a smile. 

“Just so, my dear,” he agreed, and as he spoke the white of his eyes filled up with shadows and black veins rose to the surface of his skin. “But _you_ came here.” 

Gilgamesh stood up slowly, keenly aware of his unnatural bulk, the weight of the armor and the Scourge pooled in deep inside his bones. 

“For you,” Gilgamesh said, and still felt small before whatever it was Ardyn had become. 

Ardyn smiled. 

It was not the smile Gilgamesh remembered, for all it hit the precise curve perfectly. 

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Ardyn told him instead, “you’ve reminded me what I’ve lost.” 

Gilgamesh tried to force himself forward, just one step, just a small gesture to bridge the distance. 

“Ardyn.” 

Ardyn turned back to the entrance, refusing to meet his eyes – did he still have eyes? Gilgamesh didn’t stop to puzzle over this, he could see, that was enough – and gait unhurried. 

“Now I’ve got to remind the world of the fact.” 

Gilgamesh’s entire body jerked forward on reflex, but then the shadows reached out and looped around his limbs, pulling back and holding him in place. Gilgamesh tried to free himself, testing his strength against his bonds, and found it solely lacking. 

“It’s better if you don’t know what happens next,” Ardyn explained as he walked away. “You’ll be disappointed, either way.” 

Ardyn began to melt into the darkness, the edges of his being blurry enough to not be clear or defined. 

“ _Ardyn._ ” 

Ardyn walked on, and did not look back. 

“Ardyn!” 

* * *

Gilgamesh never saw him again. 

Not him. 

Not the man he loved. 

Never again. 

* * *

Ardyn razed Eos to the ground. 

He was done being heartbroken – his heart had been left behind, somewhere in the depths of the Crag – and all he had left was anger and hate. It became an echo chamber of sorts, with the creature more often than not hanging off his shoulder. They hated the same and wanted the same and if, when he stood before the Crystal the first time, he’d been convinced he was doing right by humanity… now his determination knew no bounds. He would shatter the Crystal and the monster inside it. He would bring low his enemies and let them taste the same soul-rot despair that had been forced upon him. 

He thought of Gilgamesh, sometimes. He thought of his silences, which always said much more than his words. He thought of his hands and the memory of their callouses on his skin. He thought of that ghost of a smile caught somewhere in his eyes and never quite free enough to hang off his lips. And then he remembered Gilgamesh, twisted by the Scourge, sealed away in the Crag, ruined. 

_Ruined_ . 

Ardyn would show the world, the true meaning of ruin. 

* * *

“He gave him the Light,” the fox hissed, fur bristling into sharp, pointed needles as it snarled against Ardyn’s ear. “He gave him _my_ Light.” 

Ardyn stared at his brother – had been his brother, once – and his Ring and his dancing glaives of light. He stared at his sister – had been his sister, once – clutching a trident and calling forth divine wrath to stop him. 

“So give me your Dark,” Ardyn demanded, fingers clutched tight on the grip of the scythe. “Let’s measure the depth of your hate, then.” 

The fox melted into him, settled deep inside the pulse of darkness and Scourge buried in his soul. 

_All that I am is already yours._

Ardyn saw his brother’s eyes widening when the scythe crystallized and couldn’t remember to feel bad even as he tried his honest best to cut him down like ripe wheat. 

* * *

In the end, it wasn’t enough. 

In the end, the scales were rigged. What should have been balance – he’d known, even as he embraced the dark, called it his own, he’d _known_ – was instead askew. His brother had the Light, stolen from the crystal and bestowed upon him by a treacherous god. His sister had her trident and her magic and the might of the Six at the tip of her fingers. He had anger and hatred and despair, and though it should have more than made up for it, it wasn’t enough. 

He wasn’t enough. 

At least, he supposed, Gilgamesh was safe in the Crag, deep in the dark, away from anyone who would seek to do him harm. 

At least he didn’t have to find out what it was like, fighting against him. 

At least. 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out on [DW](https://notavodkashot.dreamwidth.org/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/notavodkashot), if you'd like.


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